Since this is such a health-oriented crowd, I thought I would solicit your help in a global health research project that I work on. Essentially, this survey seeks to capture the true burden of disease through evaluating which conditions/symptoms are more dehabilitating than others. It's a pretty interesting project that is and will be used widely by the World Health Organization and other major players in global health work, and it only requires a few minutes of your time to answer some pretty thought-provoking questions...basically a lot of "is it better/worse to have symptom x or symptom y?"

Imagine two people. One is completely blind. The other suffers from constant and intense back pain. Now you decide … Who is healthier overall?

That question is one of dozens of questions that make up the landmark Global Burden of Disease Health Measurement Survey. The goal is to understand how people think about different types of health problems and measure people’s priorities and values around these various states of health.

We hope to get at least 50,000 people worldwide to participate in the online survey. Take the challenge and discover how you rate these various states of health.

By spending about 15 minutes completing this survey, you will contribute to an important effort to improve the understanding of global health problems.

Survey results will help researchers measure the impact of different diseases and injuries on people’s health around the world, leading to a greater scientific understanding of global health problems that will ultimately enable policymakers and health care leaders to make better decisions based on stronger evidence.